$30B in tax debts forgiven by Mexico’s taxation authority

Billions of pesos worth of tax debt forgiven by the federal taxation administration, SAT, have prompted criticism from a civil organization dedicated to government budget and policy analysis.

Fundar claims that canceling debts amounting to nearly 600 billion pesos, about US $30 billion, has been carried out in a discretionary and opaque manner.

The organization’s findings have been published in a report called Fiscal Privileges, which says that SAT has cancelled the debts without providing any logical explanation to justify its actions, while withholding details about the individuals or businesses involved.

What Fundar was able to determine was that forgiving the tax debts has for the most part benefitted a small number of taxpayers, which it describes as “a worrying situation.”

Just in the last year, the tax authority forgave tax debts amounting to 15 billion pesos owed by 15 companies. Among them were several branches of the GEO corporation, Simec International, Industrias CH, Volkswagen, the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) and Arnecom.